The Fortune Teller
by bren97122
Summary: While roaming Dunwall's streets, Corvo has a strange encounter with a man who knows a thing or two about him. Just a quick one-shot.


Corvo legged it down the street, avoiding stepping on plague ridden corpses or groups of rats. With the grace of a skilled acrobat, he leapt up onto a crate and jumped up and grabbed a higher wall and heaved himself up. Taking cover behind a building, he leaned out to see if there were potential threats in his path. With none in sight, he calmly jogged down the alleyway and onto the street. As he rounded a corner around a pile of rubble, he heard footsteps behind him. Whipping around and raising his blade up to a battle stance, he saw only a bent old man in shabby clothing smiling at him.

"Calm down there, young man." The old man said. Corvo dropped his sword to his side and kept on going. "Wait!" The old man said. Corvo stopped for a second but kept going. "Why are you leaving so quickly? Wouldn't you like to stay and see what I have to offer?" Corvo faced the old man. This man was crazy. Couldn't he see that Corvo was a guy in a metal, skull like mask, a bloodstained sword in one hand, and a glowing mark on the other hand? Every other person he saw either tried to kill him or ran away in terror.

Corvo sighed and said, slightly muffled by his mask, "Fine, old man. What exactly do you offer?" The old man smiled again and said "Fortune telling, especially using tarot cards." Corvo got one of those when he was younger. He and his friends were slightly drunk at the time, so he didn't really remember the result of it.

Corvo thinking over this offer finally said "Alright. Couldn't hurt." The old man then led him into an apartment and up a flight of stairs to a small room, bare expect for a wooden table and two chairs opposite each other. Corvo took his seat across from the old man, who then produced a deck of tarot cards from his rags.

As the man shuffled the cards at an admirably fast and professional manner, Corvo said "Isn't things like fortune telling banned by the Abbey?" The old nodded and said "Well, young man, does it look like I care about their frivolous rules and regulations? A bunch of cons the Abbey is." Corvo thought that was a rather ironic statement, coming from a fortune teller.

The old man fanned out all the cards and had Corvo pick three at random. When he finished his selection, the old man laid out the three cards in front of him facedown. "This is a three card spread." He started to explain. "It is a very simple and time tested method for divination. This first card is your past. Go ahead, flip it over." He said. Corvo did and the image showed ten chalices in the sky, spread out in an arc with a couple facing it, their arms around each other with the man's left arm raised and the woman's right arm raised. Beside them were two dancing children. The fortune teller smiled. "The Ten of Cups. This represents lasting happiness, true love, honor, virtue, and good fortune overall." Corvo thought that this was an interesting card to pull. "True love" and "lasting happiness?" He thought back to times with Empress Jessamine and their secret relationship and how he was so happy to be with her.

"This card is your present." The fortune teller said. It seemed as if the old man could detect that Corvo found his "past" card interesting. Corvo flipped over the card and saw that the image on it was of a tower on a rocky cliff aflame and being struck by lightning, with two men apparently falling from it.

"The Tower!" The old man cried out. "This card represents ruin, loss, or sudden unforeseen turn of events or catastrophe." Corvo's heart skipped a beat. How strange this little fortune telling session was becoming. "Ruin" and "loss" and even "sudden unforeseen turn of events or catastrophe?" He remembered that damn day, when he returned home to Jessamine, only to have her taken from him in a savage act of violence, his own daughter snatched away while Corvo was held powerless to resist. And of course, how he became the scapegoat for Spymaster Burrow's twisted plot, how he was tortured and imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit. How events have turned for him indeed.

"And your final card... Your future." Corvo, with a slightly shaking hand, turned it over. The final card had an image of a young man and woman, both facing each other and holding a golden cup in their hands. Above them was a red, winged lion's head and a rod with two lines intertwining. The fortune teller smiled once more. "The Two of Cups. Not a bad card to represent your future. Meanings include new romance or attraction or two coming together as one. Your future seems very... Bright if I should say so myself."

Corvo was once again mystified. Could this mean everything would level out in the end? And what could the meaning behind "new romance" be? He thought of a single person... A young woman with bright red hair and light brown eyes that was usually found tidying up the Hounds Pits Pub, but when he walked past her, she also gave him this look of longing almost. He wasn't sure, but Corvo felt as if he gave her the same look at times.

Corvo and the old man got up at the same time. "Thank you for stopping in." The old man said. "I hope this helped clear your vision in some way... Mr. Attano." Corvo stopped what he was doing and looked at the man. He was still wearing his mask, his coat, everything! How did this old man know who he was? The old man smiled at him. "I know and can see a lot of things, Mr. Attano. Good day to you." Corvo didn't say another word and hurried out of the apartment. He could feel as if the old man still had his gaze on Corvo as he left. He tried to press out what he just experienced; telling himself that he just had a very lucky pick of cards, ignoring the fact the old man knew who he was. After all, all fortune tellers were frauds.

Right?


End file.
